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Friday, March 30, 2012

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida endorsed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for president during the Wednesday night broadcast of the Fox News program Hannity. As justification for his decision, Rubio argued that Romney will be the Republican Party presidential nominee and offers “a stark contrast to …[President Barack Obama]’s record.”

Rubio, who is Cuban American, took office in 2011 after defeating former Florida governor Charlie Crist. He often receives mention as a potential running mate for the still-undecided 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee.

The Associated Press estimates that Romney currently leads his opponents for the nomination, Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, with 568 of the 1,144 delegates necessary to win. 1,258 delegates remain in play.

Gingrich and Santorum are continuing their presidential runs in the hope of forcing a brokered convention to deny Romney the nomination. Rubio warned of such a scenario in the Hannity interview, commenting that it would “be a recipe for disaster” and would help re-elect the Democrat, Obama.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush offered a similar justification in his endorsement of Romney earlier this month, calling on the party to “unite behind Governor Romney”.

Other potential vice-presidential nominees such as New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Virginia governor Bob McDonnell have already thrown their support to Romney.

Rubio claims to have not spoken with Romney about the vice-presidential nomination, and has previously denied any interest in it.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vault containing millions of seeds from all over the world, saw its first deposits on Tuesday. Located 800 kilometers from the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the vault has been referred to by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso as a “frozen Garden of Eden“. It is intended to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity in the event of a worldwide disaster.

“The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is in charge of collecting the seed samples. The Norwegian government, who owns the bank, built it at a cost of $9.1 million.

At the opening ceremony, 100 million seeds from 268,000 samples were placed inside the vault, where there is room for over 2 billion seeds. Each of the samples originated from a different farm or field, in order to best ensure biological diversity. These crop seeds included such staples as rice, potatoes, barley, lettuce, maize, sorghum, and wheat. No genetically modified crops were included. (Beyond politics they are generally sterile so of no use.)

Constructed deep inside a mountain and protected by concrete walls, the “doomsday vault” is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear warfare, and floods resulting from global warming. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it an “insurance policy” against such threats.

With air-conditioned temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius, experts say the seeds could last for an entire millennium. Some crops will be able to last longer, like sorghum, which the Global Crop Diversity Trust says can last almost 20 millenniums. Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vaults are expected to stay frozen for 200 years.

The Prime Minister said, “With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.” Stoltenberg, along with Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, made the first deposit of rice to the vault.

“It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks,” Maathai said. The vault will operate as a bank, allowing countries to use their deposited seeds free of charge. It will also serve as a backup to the thousands of other seed banks around the world.

“Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints and for meeting the food needs of a growing population,” Cary Fowler said.

Saturday, July 9, 2005

Today The Walt Disney Company issued a joint statement with business partners Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold to the media, as a show of reunion between the two camps after nearly three years of hostility.

Roy E. Disney, son of company co-founder Roy O. Disney and nephew of the company namesake Walt Disney, had resigned from his job as chairman of Feature Animation at the company after experiencing difficulty with the company’s board of directors, many of whom were biased towards company CEO Michael Eisner‘s view of what direction the company should take.

Eisner is due to retire from the company this September, and the talks with Disney and Gold are believed to have been led by Eisner’s successor, Bob Iger, who is currently President and COO of the company. Iger has shown great interest in building relationships back up with many companies who have refused to work with Disney until Eisner leaves, such as Pixar Animation and George Lucas.

Large scores of Disney fans had hoped Roy would read the Disneyland Dedication Speech on the theme park’s fiftieth birthday next week, which was originally read by Walt on the park’s opening day, but Roy had already entered an annual sailing race from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Macomb, New York Councilman Steve Burke took some time to speak with Wikinews about his campaign for the U.S. Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nomination.

Burke, an insurance adjuster and farmer, was elected councilman in Brookhaven, New York in 1979. He left the town after being accused and found not guilty of bribery in the 1980s. Since 1987 he has served as Macomb councilman off-and-on and currently holds the post. From 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002 he worked as chairman of the Democratic Party of St. Lawrence County, New York. Among his many political campaigns, Burke unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1992 and recently attempted to run for U.S. Congress in 2014 but too many of his ballot petition signatures were found invalid. Burke filed with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in the 2016 election on September 18, 2015 and has qualified for the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary.

With Wikinews reporter William S. Saturn?, Burke discusses his political background, his 2016 presidential campaign, and his policy proposals.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

An office block fire in Ürümqi, northwest China has claimed the lives of three firefighters and injured a fourth. The 12-storey dual-purpose office and market building was completely destroyed in the blaze, which also spread to and severely damaged an adjacent hotel.

According to a spokesman for Xinjiang fire brigade, an eyewitness reported that the fire, which started at around 8:20 p.m. local time on Wednesday night, originated in a stall selling mops on the first floor of the Dehui International Plaza. According to a security guard, the building had been emptied of customers 20 minutes before and consequently few people remained in the building at the time of the fire. Fire crews arrived within 15 minutes of the fire starting.

The plaza’s basement up to its fourth floor contained a total of approximately 2,000 stalls selling items such as clothes, cosmetics and toys. Floors five to 12 housed offices.

All 12 floors were engulfed by fire, and fire crews eventually abandoned efforts to tackle the conflagration amid fears of a collapse. The fire continued into Thursday afternoon, but has since been controlled. It burned for a total of nearly 22 hours. A neighbouring 20-storey hotel also caught fire; only the seventh floor was affected before the second building was put out. All guests were evacuated.

As of 6:30 p.m. there was still much smoke in the area, but no visible flames. Rescue workers remained unable to access the building due to continued intense heat. A total of 435 fire fighters and 84 fire engines were involved in the emergency response. 100 firefighters continue to check the hotel for any small fires, which may remain to be extinguished. Structural measures have been undertaken to prevent the steel framed plaza from collapsing when the metal comes into contact with cool night air, which typically falls to temperatures of minus 20 degrees centigrade.

The injured fireman has been hospitalised and is in a stable condition. The deceased were identified as Zhu Xiaolei, Zhang Yu and Gao Feng. They had been conducting a search of the building to check for anyone who may have been trapped. Feng was initially considered missing, but was subsequently confirmed to have died. It is presently believed no civilians were injured in the blaze.

A quantification for the value of damages caused is not yet available. Authorities have launched an investigation into the disaster.

Friday, February 27, 2009

On February 24th the Swedish Royal Court announced that the Crown Princess Victoria is to be married in 2010 to her boyfriend and former fitness trainer Daniel Westling. KP Victoria, 31, and Daniel, 35, have been in a relationship for seven years. As the wedding is to be held in the summer of 2010, it gives the court 18 months to prepare, contemplate the wedding dress of the Crown Princess, and complete the guest-list – which will include prominent guests from Europe and the world.

According to the Swedish constitution, KP Victoria must ask for the King’s approval for the marriage, who then has to call a cabinet council so that the government can give its approval. This was done on Tuesday morning, just before the court announced the engagement.

After the wedding, Daniel will be given the title of Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland. Their children will be next in line to the throne after Crown Princess Victoria.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Ricardo Serran Lobo is a Brazilian blogger who writes about his famous neighbor, the politician Roberto Jefferson, head of the Brazilian Labor Party in the Brazilian Congress of Deputies. Jefferson has become a major figure in the ongoing Brazilian mensalão scandal revolving around corruption and bribery.

Vizinho do Jefferson [1] quickly became very popular among Brazilians, describing the routine of Jefferson, while providing information about politics and fresh news about the scandal. Lobo’s blog got third place in the Best Of Blogs contest run by Deutsche Welle International.

Lobo gets an intimate look at the center of Brazilian politics by living in Brasilia, near residences of parliamentarians (including Roberto Jefferson), public buildings and the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. Or, as he says in his blog: “near the eye of the hurricane,” a reference to the recent political crisis.

At first, Lobo began describing the daily activities of his famous neighbor deputy Roberto Jefferson. As the crisis moved on, he began to describe the political events regarding it. His writings evolved to not only what is going on with Jefferson, but what is going on in Brazilian Congress, and has interviewed politicians, including Roberto Jefferson himself.

The blog tries to be informative, with a lot of humour (common with Brazilians), and some protests against the bad habits of Brazilian politics in general.

Jefferson’s neighbor, the blog, is an example of citizen journalism and it shows that ordinary people can compete with professional media.